Patchwork: A Unified Framework for RAG Serving
This addresses efficiency bottlenecks for developers deploying RAG systems, though it appears incremental as a framework optimization rather than a paradigm shift.
The paper tackles the challenge of efficiently deploying heterogeneous Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG) systems by introducing Patchwork, a unified serving framework that achieved throughput gains exceeding 48% and reduced SLO violations by ~24% in experiments.
Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG) has emerged as a new paradigm for enhancing Large Language Model reliability through integration with external knowledge sources. However, efficient deployment of these systems presents significant technical challenges due to their inherently heterogeneous computational pipelines comprising LLMs, databases, and specialized processing components. We introduce Patchwork, a comprehensive end-to-end RAG serving framework designed to address these efficiency bottlenecks. Patchwork's architecture offers three key innovations: First, it provides a flexible specification interface enabling users to implement custom RAG pipelines. Secondly, it deploys these pipelines as distributed inference systems while optimizing for the unique scalability characteristics of individual RAG components. Third, Patchwork incorporates an online scheduling mechanism that continuously monitors request load and execution progress, dynamically minimizing SLO violations through strategic request prioritization and resource auto-scaling. Our experimental evaluation across four distinct RAG implementations demonstrates that Patchwork delivers substantial performance improvements over commercial alternatives, achieving throughput gains exceeding 48% while simultaneously reducing SLO violations by ~24%.